We the People Book Club

Monday, September 03 - Monday, August 26

You are welcome to sign up for this book club any time before the last day, August 26, 2019. After you do, you will find in your account an archive of the sessions covered so far, and you can read them online or resend them to yourself. We will periodically upload new participant lists so that you can also receive the weekly emails. Thank you for your interest!

The We the People Book Club is a year-long program designed with the intention of giving you an opportunity to strengthen your vision of democracy and your connections with others. We will be contemplating America's past and possibilities as presented by classic and contemporary literary voices.

This book club is being offered by The Practicing Democracy Project, a collaboration between The Center for Spirituality & Practice and the Fetzer Institute. It affirms two principles. First, reading itself is a spiritual practice. It requires inner work of quiet and stillness, attention to detail, and empathy as we imagine lives other than our own and root for characters to resolve their struggles.

Second, when this inner work inspires engagement with our neighbors and communities — as happens in book clubs — it becomes deeply democratic. Book club members passionately share responses to a text. Connections are forged, consensus arises, differences are respected, and unity is built as each person has a chance to speak and be heard.

The Selections

We look forward to exploring with you novels, short stories, poetry, and essays. Through engaging narratives, humor, cultural criticism, and spiritual wisdom, these selections show democracy failing and succeeding and implicitly urge us as readers to keep alive what American author John Steinbeck called that “stumbling-forward ache.”

September - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
October - The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
November - A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
December - Selected Poems of Walt Whitman and Maya Angelou
January - Tenth of December by George Saunders
February - Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
March - Puddnhead Wilson by Mark Twain
April - The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
May - Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko
June - The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
July - The Partly-Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell
August - Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

1. Sign up to be in the We the People Book Club Practice Circle: You will receive emails with discussion questions every Monday. Each email will cover roughly one-quarter of that month's selection. This option allows for an in-depth, progressive study of each text and gives you ideas for related spiritual practices and material for further exploration inspired by the reading. We expect this to be a dynamic experience, intellectually and spiritually.

You will be able to post your comments on the discussion questions in an online Practice Circle, a forum open 24/7, and read the thoughts of other book club members. The discussion will be facilitated by Practicing Democracy Fellow Julia Davis.

Spirituality & Practice is hosting this Practice Circle. We are charging $24 for the year ($2 per selection) to cover the costs of the emails, the forum setup, and technical help. To join the Practice Circle and get on the mailing list for the weekly emails, use the "Subscribe" button below.

2. Download a Reading Guide: For those who would like to follow along on their own or with their own book club, reading guides will be available on the first of each month. These guides will include short introductions to the author(s) and the month's selection plus discussion questions to reflect back holistically on your reading experiences. The guides will also include links that expand on the concerns of the book, spiritual practice ideas, and resources for getting involved in your community in ways inspired by the book. You can download the latest Reading Guide on this page.

You can find copies of the books at your local bookstore, at online booksellers, or through the public library, using interlibrary loan if they are not on the shelves.

Presenter

Your guide for this exploration will be Julia (Julie) Davis, a fellow with The Practicing Democracy Project. Julia holds an M.A. and C.Phil. in English and American Literatures and Cultures from Brown University and a B.A. in English from the University of California at Santa Barbara. She is currently pursuing her Master of Divinity at Claremont School of Theology with a focus on Interfaith Chaplaincy. Her interest in chaplaincy grows out of her 17 years experience teaching American literature at the college and high school level. Julia is passionate about the intersection of spiritual practices and social change.